Ban on Assisted Suicide Upheld

Published: March 10, 1995

SAN FRANCISCO, March 9—
In a 2-to-1 ruling today, a Federal appeals court upheld a Washington law barring doctors from helping terminally ill patients die, saying it protects the poor and handicapped and keeps doctors from becoming "killers of their patients."

It was the first ruling by a Federal appeals court on the validity of a law barring physician-assisted suicide, an issue that gained prominence with Michigan's prosecution of Dr. Jack Kevorkian and Oregon voters' passage of a right-to-die law.

The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit said the claim of a right to doctor-assisted suicide had no basis in the "traditions of our nation" and was "antithetical to the defense of human life that has been a chief responsibility of our constitutional government."

The appellate ruling, written by Judge John T. Noonan, overturns a lower court decision calling the law unconstitutional. Judge Noonan was an anti-abortion legal theoretician and Catholic scholar before his appointment to the bench by President Ronald Reagan in 1986.

Judge Noonan, joined by Judge Diarmuid F. O'Scannlain, wrote that the right to privacy might encompass freedom from unwanted medical intervention, but not "the right to have a second person collaborate in your death." Judge Eugene A. Wright dissented, saying the law violated "the right to die with dignity."

Compassion in Dying, an organization that joined with three terminally ill patients, now deceased, and a group of doctors to bring the suit, plans to appeal, said its vice president, John Lee of Bellevue, Wash. He said the ruling showed the court's "lack of concern and compassion for the terminally ill who are suffering from intractable pain."

Americans United for Life, based in Chicago and representing a group of Washington legislators, said the ruling continued a trend of decisions by courts in the United States and abroad upholding similar laws.

"What would be helpful in this area is if people stopped looking at the law as a solution to a medical problem," said Paul Linton, a lawyer for the group.